…based on this chart released by The Oil Drum, it definitely appears that they aren’t helping.

Just because I’m lazy, I’m going to quote from the original site…

Cement is mainly used to make concrete, and is sort of the “active ingredient” in concrete – it is combined with sand and gravel in roughly fixed proportions. So cement production can be considered a rough proxy for the total amount of construction going on in a country.

Lately in the construction industry, we have been finding costs of raw materials to almost double what they used to be. Steel used to be about $1.00/lb for construction needs…now it is up to $2.00/lb. Concrete used to be about $350/cy…now if we can find it for $600/cy, we’ll consider it a deal! This has wreaked havoc with local projects that have supposedly gone over the budget set aside a couple years back, and mainly it’s because of the rising costs that no one could have predicted.

The rumors I have heard is that China is behind the raw material “crisis”. They have hit a huge boom in construction, and probably in no small amount due to the Olympics going to be held in Beijing. The city is being revamped, new skyscrapers are being built, world record breaking bridges are being built, you name it. A lot of this material they are using is purchased scrap from other countries, normally what we (USA) rely on to make our own. Hence, the rise in costs…

But, I can’t fully fault the Chinese. They were low bidder on the scrap, more power to them for using it. Maybe everyone else should have thought about it when they first saw the signs. All I know is at some point in my life I want to travel to China to see all of these wondrous buildings and bridges that are currently in the works!

And by the way, tree huggers will not forget to tell you that producing this much cement is not healthy for the environment. A lot of energy is needed to produce cement, so this huge spike in production can only mean a lot more of coal consumed.

Retrieved from -The Oil Drum-

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